Perhaps it goes without saying that
William Fitzsimmons, with his sotto voce vocals and avalanche of facial hair, bears more than a few similarities to fellow folksinger
Iron & Wine.
Fitzsimmons never sounds as rustic as his bearded doppelgänger, though, choosing to avoid
Iron & Wine’s pastoral lyrics and focus his own songs on personal problems. On Gold in the Shadow, he makes peace with inner demons over a sympathetic soundtrack of acoustic guitar, percussion, and bubbling keyboard. The lyrics run the gamut from despondent (“Cut me open, please”) to wearily confident (“Wounded head, you will be fine/Your weary legs will hold you in time), but the music is almost aggressively balanced, with BPMs that rarely stray beyond the midtempo mark and dynamics that are rarely too soft or too loud.
Fitzsimmons keeps things moving at a steady pace, and he strings the songs together with light touches of electronica, from the gauzy synths in “Let You Break” (a duet with
Julia Stone) to the programmed stomp-and-clap percussion of “Psychasthenia.” The result is an album that soothes without smoothing over its own emotional content. [Gold in the Shadow was also released in a double-disc deluxe package, featuring five unreleased tunes and several acoustic tracks that strip the keyboards away from
Fitzsimmons’ guitar-and-vocals bedrock.] ~ Andrew Leahey